


Bullet With Butterfly Wings

by chancellor_valdez



Category: Queen of the South (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 12:20:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15663120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chancellor_valdez/pseuds/chancellor_valdez
Summary: She walks through the empty halls and empty room. It’s so quiet for a hospital. It’s too quiet because all she can hear replaying through her head with each echoing footstep is the gunfire, and the shouting, and his voice.“You’re gonna get us killed.”Why was he always right? Why couldn’t he be wrong about this one thing? Why couldn’t it just be his overprotective dramatics shining through again? He better be wrong. If he dies…She stops when she feels the shudder run through her body and presses her palms hard against her eyes, hoping to keep them dry. And she sees it all again.James gets shot and Teresa doesn't take it too well.





	Bullet With Butterfly Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Written before 3x09. My first fic ever all because I'm a big Jeresa Hoe. Be gentle with me.

She walks through the empty halls and empty room. It’s so quiet for a hospital. It’s too quiet because all she can hear replaying through her head with each echoing footstep is the gunfire, and the shouting, and his voice. 

_“You’re gonna get us killed.”_

Why was he always right? Why couldn’t he be wrong about this one thing? Why couldn’t it just be his overprotective dramatics shining through again? He better be wrong. If he dies…

She stops when she feels the shudder run through her body and presses her palms hard against her eyes, hoping to keep them dry. And she sees it all again.

Gun shots lighting up the night. Her own voice tearing through her throat. The explosion. Another shot. The bloom of blood across James’s ribs. 

For a single moment, she thought it wasn’t his. It couldn’t be. It was just another casualty of the war surrounding them. But then he cursed, and faltered, and pressed a hand to the spot and her ears filled with white noise. She didn’t stop to think about anything else, not about the guns, or the product, or how much this felt like the last time she saw Guero. 

She doesn’t exactly remember how they got back to the car. On minute she’s yelling for Pote, the next she’s behind the wheel, speeding through the streets as she follows the directions to the hospital they paid off. She doesn’t have time to think about how similar it is to the way he drove through Dallas the first day he met her. He was desperate to keep her alive then and she didn’t even matter yet. Damn him.  
Maybe she ignored the grunts of barely concealed pain from the backseat. Maybe she tried to put all her focus on the road. And maybe when James fell quietly into unconsciousness, she saw Guero in the back seat, dead in her lap, because of her. Maybe she hears an irritated voice whisper in her ear, _“I've got a plan for a future. And it doesn't include getting killed by crossfire meant for you.”_

Teresa Mendoza had been through a lot of shit in her life, but the idea of losing the two men she ever cared enough about to bullets aimed at her within weeks of each other isn’t something she was willing to face.

They’d pulled around back, Pote had dragged James inside by the shoulders, barely conscious once again, and before she knew it she was standing outside closed doors as their doctor tried to save his life. And she had walked away. Turned into the nearest hallway and just kept walking.

That’s how she ended up here, somewhere in a quiet hospital, with her back pressed against the wall, trying not to let this one break her. 

She’d tried. Oh, she had tried so hard. She pushed him away, she beat down the idea that he owed her anything, she tried to make him leave, she added as many bricks to the wall around her as she could to keep him from becoming Guero. But it didn’t help. That stupid, head strong man just couldn’t help caring about her and here she was waiting to find out if she killed another man she loved.

_Loved?_

Yeah, loved. It took another bullet to make her realize she couldn’t ignore it any longer. Pushing him away wouldn’t solve anything, wouldn’t make it hurt less when he left. She had grieved and he had let her. She had lashed out and he took it. She told him to go and he stayed. And all it got them was a bullet in his side and the feeling of one through hers.

When she pulled her hands away from her eyes, she noticed the blood on her sleeve. Just a few drops, straining her wrist, and probably not even his, but it was enough. She slid down the wall, dropped her face to her hands, and cried. 

 

Pote finds her later, still sitting there staring at that small spot of blood, brown now and dried. She doesn’t know how long she’s been there, probably hours, replaying it all in her head. And not just that night, but all of them. All the nights he was there when he didn’t have to be. Always protecting her even when she didn’t know it. And especially their night together. How he smiled, how she laughed looking back at him with his hands on her face. How he held her. And how she let it all fall apart after that because their lives could never be easy.

“Teresita.”

She doesn’t look up, just asked in a ragged voice, “Is he gone?”

Realistically she knows he responds to her immediately, but it feels like years, decades even, waiting to hear him confirm all her fears with one word. But he doesn’t.

“No.” 

Her head snaps up to look at him, disbelief clouding her tired eyes. 

“Doc just told me to come find you is all.” So she nods solemnly, wipes her eyes, and lets Pote lead her back to the doors James disappeared behind. “He’ll be just fine, Teresita. You know the pendejo is too stubborn to die yet.” She might try to laugh, just for Pote’s sake. 

He sits her in a chair and brings her a cup of bitter lukewarm coffee and doesn’t say anything else as they wait. There isn’t really much to say at this point. 

James got shot. 

James got shot trying to protect her, because she was being “reckless” again. 

And now he was in some old, quiet hospital probably bleeding to death in the back room with a doctor she barely knew anything about other than he was willing to turn a blind eye and not ask questions when the cartel brought in another gunshot victim.

It made her chest hurt. But at this point there probably wasn’t a part of her that didn’t hurt. Her head was pounding from all the crying she did in the hallway. Her eyes stung from her lack of sleep. Her fingers cramped up around her cold cup of coffee. 

All she wanted now was a soft bed. A soft bed and maybe a breathing James to lie with her in it. They deserved that much. Didn’t they?  
When the door opened Teresa was on her feet in front of the doctor before he could even blink, Pote coming up behind her. The only thing he managed to say was, “He’s out,” before she was pushing past him and through the doors. She didn’t wait to hear him say a word more. He was out and he wasn’t dead and that’s all she needed to know right now. 

Her feet carried her through the hallway as she checked into each room. Empty. Empty. Empty.  
Maybe she should’ve stayed. Maybe she would’ve heard the doc say, “He’s out, but he didn’t make it.” The thought slowed her. What was she going to find in this wing? A cold body? More empty rooms?  
She approached the next door slowly, almost too afraid to open it at this point. Her hand shook as she held the handle. This was it. She turned it, pressed the door open and stepped inside.

And James looked up at her immediately. 

He was sitting on the edge of a bed, no shirt, with gauzy bandages wrapped tightly around his middle. He was pale, and there was still traces of blood staining his skin, but he was alive and when she looked those tired eyes she couldn’t stop the sob of relief from bursting from her lips. 

He looked almost surprised to see her. Like he was expecting a doctor or Pote to come back first, anyone, but her. He tried to straighten up at the sound, but winced immediately and she went to him.

She went to him and stood in front of him and looked into his face, and let the tears fall down her cheeks. Because he was really okay, and she didn’t lose him. 

He reached out to her with a soft, “Hey,” and held onto her wrist. She broke. She fell forward, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and holding onto him as tight as she could so nothing would ever dare try to take him away again. She tried to mind the very recent bullet wound at his side, but in the moment it was all too much she couldn’t control herself. 

His skin was so warm and alive, and she felt his chest rise against hers as he breathed. She could hear him whispering things against her hair. Words of comfort, saying he was okay. She was so overwhelmed by it all she clung to him even tighter and pressed her face into his neck as she sobbed. He was okay. He was stroking her hair and breathing and he was okay. They were both okay. 

When she pulled back to look at him once more, she thought to herself that she’d never seen a man so beautiful and complicated in her life. She had loved Guero, yes. For years she had loved him with her whole heart, but that was a past Teresa; one that had already come to terms with her past and moved forward. This Teresa had James and she wasn’t ready to give him up to a bullet, or her own issues.  
He reached up to brush away her tears, still slightly confused.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a rush of breath.

“Teresa-” he started, and god his voice almost broke her apart again.

“No. I’m sorry, for pushing you away, and treating you the way I did. I’m sorry. Please, don’t leave.”  
It dawned on him then, she could see it in his eyes, the way they softened at her. “I’m not leaving.”  
She nodded and let him pull her forward to press a soft kiss to her forehead before he wrapped her carefully in his arms again. 

And they held each other like that, like they were both clinging on to the last bit of love they had left breathing each other in, and just existing together in that quiet hospital room.


End file.
